2ANNAS is an independent film and audio-visual art festival, searching for and introducing its audience to not only popular short pieces of the moving image, bet also innovative means/ways of visual communication on a global scale. The programme consists of films without any confinements to a specific genre, showcasing fiction, animation, documentary and experimental videos with anything and everything in between. The aim of the festival is to popularise European and world cinema in Latvia, as well as examine the evolution of Baltic cinema, thus hosting the only Baltic screening programme in the region.
Alongside the strong competition programmes to be screened across the one week period 2ANNAS also showcases some of the most significant pieces of work from across the world. Selecting a different point of focus every year, 2ANNAS holds to the concept of screening films everyone interested in cinema should see. Thus in the 2013 festival 2ANNAS turns to the woman in cinema: Woman – avant-gardist, housewife, prostitute, bringing to Latvia the works of such significant artists as Germaine Dilac, Maya Deren, Lotte Reiniger, Chantal Akerman, Linda Christanell, Eija Liisa Ahtila, Lene Berg. At the same time the local audience will be able to remember and get inspired by nationally renowned women in cinema and screen art: Laila Pakalniņa, Maija Brence, Katrīna Neiburga. The best works from the competition programmes are going to be judged by a professional jury – in Latvia the widely known film director Aik Karapetian, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival programme curator Olaf Moller and film producer Thom Palmen.
2ANNAS exists in a context in which short film is not merely a step towards the first feature but can be viewed as an authentic and standalone work of art. 2ANNAS is also characterised not only by the high quality work it showcases, but also because of its extraordinary form: the festival is known for its wild parties in unusual places, free atmosphere and creative displays reaching outside the borders of cinema.
